There appears to be no truth to a rumour that Costco Inc. will establish a new store in the site recently vacated by the Flying J.

The truck stop, gas station and shop closed at the end of last month, while the restaurant on the site, Da Giovanni, continues operation.

The land, which occupies 6.1 hectares, or 663,068 square feet of space, was acquired on Dec. 28 for $11.5 million by Vaudreuil-based Harden Group Inc., which owns the Vaudreuil Mega Centre, one of the strip malls (with the Gap outlet) in the Vaudreuil-Dorion outlet area on De La Gare St.

Tyler Harden, the company’s vice president of leasing said Costco has not been approached for the site, nor has the company contacted Harden.

Even if it had, Harden said he’s not sure it would make financial sense for the company to rent that site out to Costco.

“The thing with Costco is that they take up a significant amount of land, and if we were purely speculating and saying they would go to a site like this one, they would take up at least 75 per cent, so that’s less attractive for us, because we paid a premium for the site,” Harden said. “In order for us to have a reasonable return, we’d need to have several stores.”

Harden said the company is still planning what it will develop in the spot vacated by Flying J. The site adds to Harden’s holdings in the area. The company also owns another vacant lot, with an area of 1.5 million square feet, that it also plans to develop in the next few years.

As for Costco, Harden said the company could establish a store in Vaudreuil when it finds suitable space.

“I know Costco has been looking at sites here for a number of years,” he said.

Officials from Costco didn’t return calls on Monday.

Officials from Pilot Flying J, the company that owns the Flying J stations would not comment about the closure of the station, nor would they say whether the company plans to establish a new station in the area.

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